Sapphire Ultimate Radeon HD 2600 XT - Early Peek - Page 1

Published on 13th Aug 2007, written by TeamB3D for Consumer Graphics - Last updated: 14th Aug 2007

Introduction

The
Radeon HD 2600 XT has been in the news a bit recently, with most
chatter centering around the memory clock and the price. Is it 700MHz
or 800MHz for the former? Does the freefall towards $99 make that
memory clock variance moot? Let's not forget there's been some
squabbling and grief over whether duff boards made it to consumers, too.

It's the middle of the three points that most people will focus on, and rightly so,
since RV630 XT at or near 99 bucks is excellent value no matter which
way you slice it. Besides the 3D rendering
ability, there's a video-focused chunk of logic dedicated to decode of
the latest high-bitrate, high-complexity video codecs.

Pair
that with HDMI output ability with audio, and you've got a card that
screams for use in a HTPC situation where that HTPC might do a spot of
gaming on the side. The downside for us to it playing that role was the
cooler. Too loud with the fan at full tilt, with possibly more chance
of it turning at that speed in a chassis tucked into a media rack, the
SKU cried out for AIB partners to change it and make it a little more
appealing.

Back in May, Sapphire
announced the Ultimate Radeon HD 2600 XT, and the world rejoiced. HD
2600 XT got a passive cooler first seen on the older Sapphire Radeon
X1650 PRO, and thus the silence folks might crave. The announce date of
July came and went, though, putting a dampener on said rejoicing, but
only until now.

Sapphire duly
sent a sample late last week and we've had the chance to quickly play
with it today to get some initial impressions.